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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801308">Intricate Rituals</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelnutofFortune/pseuds/HazelnutofFortune'>HazelnutofFortune</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Backupsmore University (Gravity Falls), College, Dissection, Ford is Gay, M/M, Mild Gore, adventures in physiology class, fiddauthor - Freeform, like in a scientific sense, really just the inherent eroticism of lab partners</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:53:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,509</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801308</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelnutofFortune/pseuds/HazelnutofFortune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fiddleford,” Ford says. He hates asking for help.</p>
<p>“Mmm?” Fiddleford asks, looking up, scalpel still raised. </p>
<p>“ Um, could you show me how to get at that big clump next to the Aorta?” How humiliating. Why did he even ask. Except-</p>
<p>“Well, sure,” Fiddleford sets down the heart and takes Ford’s a little gingerly. My heart is in his hands, Ford thinks. Fuck. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fiddleford H. McGucket/Ford Pines, Ford Pines &amp; Stan Pines</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Intricate Rituals</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>When Ford’s forced to pick an elective science, he picks Intro to Physiology without thinking about it. There’s a lab, too, and he considers for a moment the interesting sorts of dissections they’ll get to do. It’s not where his focus is, but he doesn’t doubt it’ll come in handy at some point. (He doesn’t think of Stanley, sitting on the edge of the bathtub as Ford holds an ice pack to his black eye and lectures him about how he can’t break his nose because Ford doesn’t know how to set those yet. Of how Stan had broken it two weeks after that anyway. He doesn’t think about where Stan is, how he’s doing, if he’s being more careful now that he doesn’t have Ford to patch him up. )</p>
<p>And when it’s time to pick a lab partner, he turns to the one person he knows (though not well). His sweet, nerdy southern roommate smiles when he asks, tells Ford he was just about to ask him the same thing. They do the introductory homework together that night, and Fiddleford finishes first. Ford’s fingers sweat into Backupsmore’s off-beige carpeting. <em> Oh no, </em> he thinks. <em> Stanley was right.  </em></p>
<p>
  <em> ~ </em>
</p>
<p>1970, Glass Shard Beach</p>
<p>Ford is drunk. He says as much, and Stan laughs. “Stanley,” he says, half chastisement and half soliloquizing.</p>
<p>“Yeah, lightweight?” Stan asks. There’s humor in his voice- Stan’s making fun of him. But he’s also listening, and that’s all Ford needs to keep going.</p>
<p>“Do you think,” Ford starts. He’s suddenly nervous. “Do you think I’ll ever fall in love?” </p>
<p>Stan takes a breath as if to respond, but Ford cuts him off. “That’s not what I meant. I know I can fall in love. I just meant- people like me,” He remembers Stan’s failed tryst with the boy who worked the candy store on the wharf. “People like us, who- who love the same sex. Do you think that could ever,” He searches for the phrase he’s looking for. “...Work out? Or am I just going to be waiting forever,” He doesn’t ask the hypothetical like a question. God, he’s drunk.</p>
<p>“Listen, Ford,” Stan says, and suddenly he’s angry. A kind of passion fills his voice as he speaks that makes Ford believe him. “Once we get out of this stupid podunk town, nobody’s gonna care. The world is so much bigger than all of this,” He turns his body on the swing to face the street behind them and gestures at the strip, the city. He turns back to Ford, stares him right in the face. “You’re gonna love whoever you want, and there is <em> nothing </em> Dad or anybody can do about it. In fact,” He smiles winningly. “ I am 100 percent sure that you’re gonna fall in love with the first cute boy you meet.”</p>
<p>~</p>
<p>Their first actual lab is ridiculously easy, because of course it is, in an elective science course at Backupsmore. It’s a review of the Integumentary system. They rotate between different lab stations like a high school class. </p>
<p>“Okay,” Fiddleford says, reading the instructions, sounding like he’s trying very hard not to let his accent show. “First I’ll draw a 5x5 grid on your inner wrist. Then I’m going to apply pressure and pain to each box in the grid and record your response. And then we switch.” Ford grimaces a little. </p>
<p>“I can’t do it myself?” Nobody’s touched since his mother’s hurried hug in the airport, and before that not since- he stops that train of thought before it runs off the rails. </p>
<p>“No, Ford.” Fiddleford looks exasperated. “You’d know where you were touching yourself.” And then, like Stanley, he laughs at his own innuendo. Ford cracks a smile despite his nervousness.</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to worry Fiddleford, though, so he doesn’t put up a fight. Fiddleford takes his wrist tenderly and draws the tiny grid with utmost care. Ford shivers but says nothing. </p>
<p>“Close your eyes,” He says softly. “You need to close your eyes so you won’t know where I’m about to touch you. This time it’ll jus’ be the head of the pin. ” Ford shivers again, but he nods and shuts his eyes. Fiddleford’s hand finds his wrist again and holds it still. He hears the pin click as Fiddleford picks up and suddenly he feels the ghost of a sensation in the upper leftmost box. “D’you feel it?” Fiddleford asks, and fingers flex on Ford’s upper arm. </p>
<p>“Yes!” Ford says too quickly and too loudly. Fiddleford laughs and this time Ford does too. The hand stays on his arm, warm and reassuring. </p>
<p>When they get to pain, Ford braces himself and turns his head, but they’re such tiny pricks that it barely hurts at all. </p>
<p>“My turn!” Fiddleford says. Ford pins his wrist to the table to draw, and it is so so skinny and just as warm. Ford can see his tendons and his veins, blue with blood. </p>
<p>“Your wrists are so small,” Ford breathes, overcome. </p>
<p>“Well you sure know how to charm a guy,” Fiddleford smiles. Ford keeps writing and hopes his flush isn’t as visible as he thinks it might be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Ford gets his first Multivariable Calculus quiz back, the 80 knocks the wind out of him. All the hot air that was propelling him is gone and he thinks, dully, that he’s not extraordinary. He’s just an average freak. It’s like a floodgate opens, then.</p>
<p>It had been so easy to deal, before, with Stanley there. And now he was gone who-knows-where and Ford- Ford was alone, and he’d never been the twin with the <em>personality. </em>He’d never been good with people like his brother, never been likeable in that intangible, untouchable way.</p>
<p>“I’m going to die alone,” Ford says, and, realizing he’s reached his dorm, fishes the key out of his pocket. He pushes the door open and flops on his bed with the drama of every kind of B-list soap opera broad. </p>
<p>“Hnnngg,” Ford says into his pillow. He’s a freak, not even a footnote in any greater man’s story.</p>
<p>Fiddleford finds him there when he comes back from his physics lecture and asks him, soothingly, if he'd like to talk about it.</p>
<p>Ford shakes his head no. </p>
<p>Fiddleford asks him if he'd like to get drunk about it.</p>
<p>Ford nods. </p>
<p>"Now listen," Fiddleford says, sometime later. "You just keep that handsome chin up, okay? I don't even got a chin! You're damn lucky, is what you are!"</p>
<p>"So is my stupid brother," says Ford, who doesn't know when he scooched over and let Fiddleford onto his bed, but is dealing with the proximity remarkably well. "He was always more handsome than I was."</p>
<p>"You have a brother?" Fiddleford sounds so shocked that Ford cracks a smile at his expense.</p>
<p>"Yes," Ford says. "Let's never talk about him ever again please."</p>
<p>They talk about it, though. Fiddleford is so gentle with his prying that Ford just lets the words slip out. He thinks at one point he must mention Stan's boyfriend, a boy so distant in his memory he barely remembers that sting of jealousy, but Fiddleford doesn't react. </p>
<p><em>We're holding</em> <em>hands</em>, Ford thinks. He turns to look at Fiddleford, emboldened, but his eyes are closed, and he wheezes on every exhale like a sleeping kitten.</p>
<p>"Fuck." Ford says, and looks very hard at the ceiling, which is molding in a variety of interesting ways, none of which distract him from every gay thought he's ever tried to outrun. </p>
<p>~<br/><br/></p>
<p>Fiddleford stands next to him, humming softly as he scrapes fat off the greying sheep’s heart clutched in his gloved hand. His actions are so efficient, so methodical, that it makes Ford’s own struggle look more ridiculous in comparison. Ford brings his own heart closer to his face to try to peer into the crevices between the aorta and the superior vena cava, but all he really gets out of it is a whiff of the already strong scent of formaldehyde and decaying tissue. </p>
<p>“Fiddleford,” Ford says. He hates asking for help.</p>
<p>“Mmm?” Fiddleford asks, looking up, scalpel still raised. </p>
<p>“ Um, could you show me how to get at that big clump next to the Aorta?” How humiliating. Why did he even ask. Except-</p>
<p>“Well, sure,” Fiddleford sets down the heart and takes Ford’s a little gingerly. <em> My heart is in his hands, </em>Ford thinks. Fuck. </p>
<p>“First of all, I’d try that probe. Ya’ know, just to loosen it a lil’ bit,” Fiddleford murmurs. He spears the piece of fat with the probe and wiggles it. Ford watches him intently. Fiddleford swallows. His throat bobs. “Then the scalpel,” The blade cuts quickly through the soft flesh, but it hangs on by a skinny membrane. Instead of using the scissors, Fiddleford sets down his tools and rips off the chunk with his thin fingers. Fiddleford hands Ford’s heart back, and their gloved, greasy hands touch. Ford is so attracted to him he wants to cry. His heart is still and pallid, but inside his chest, it beats wildly.  </p>
<p>“Thanks,” Ford says.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>When you're used to writing homestuck, normal formatting is a breeze.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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